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Outpatient Surgery E-Weekly

News & Notes

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InstaPoll: Do You Check Your Work E-Mail on Vacation?

Be honest: When you're on vacation, do you feel compelled to check your work e-mail 2 or 3 or 4 times a day? Or do you manage to leave it all behind...

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Archive >  Patient Safety 2009

Are You Warming Patients Effectively?

See if you're making any of these 5 common errors.

Sue Seitz, MSN, RN

The Surgical Care Improvement Project, a national collaboration of healthcare organizations that aims to engineer a reduction in surgical complications, has identified the maintaining of patient normothermia — a core temperature of greater than or equal to 96.8ºF (36ºC) — within the first 15 minutes after the patient exits the OR as a key infection prevention measure. SCIP has been monitoring this measure only among colorectal surgery patient populations, but has announced that hypothermia prevention is such a high priority to patient safety that it plans to expand the measure to surgical patients receiving general or neuraxial anesthesia lasting 60 minutes or more by next year. Here are 5 common missteps than can sink your efforts to warm patients effectively. Are you guilty of making any of them?

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Keywords:
1. Underestimating hypothermia.; 2. Keeping ORs too cold.; 3. Ignoring the evidence.; 4. Passing the buck.; 5. "Free hosing."; AORN; AORN's; ASPAN's; American Association; American Society; Anesthesiologists; Apr; Association; Austria; Blankets Ineffective; C, Sessler DI, Kurz A. Resistive Polymer Versus Forced-air Warming: Comparable Heat Transfer; C, Stadelmann K, Mayer N, Hunkeler C, Sessler DI, Kurz A. Resistive Polymer Versus Forced-air Warming: Comparable Heat Transfer; CRNAs; Carolina Hospitals; College; Comparable Heat Transfer; Core Rewarming Rates; DI, Kurz A. Resistive Polymer Versu... show all keywords
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